Mercedes Lackey - Foundation

Fortunately, there was a tailor.

In a remarkably short time, Mags was headed to the stable in a coat that was still too big for him, but which had had the sleeves and hem shortened by the simple expedient of cutting them off so he didn’t fall over them, and which was held in with a belt improvised from a bridle strap. The tailor was doing a “proper job” of shortening another coat while Mags “made do” with this one, which, so the tailor averred, “Wasn’t fit for anything but the ragbag.” Mags couldn’t see what he was talking about to be honest. There seemed nothing whatsoever wrong with the coat to him. But then, it was the first time he’d ever had a coat, and certainly no one else seemed to be wearing one with as many patches on it as this one He didn’t see where they made a difference; certainly he was toasty warm in this thing.

He knew where the stable was already, for he had been to visit Dallen several times there. This time, when he pushed open the door tentatively, and stood blinking in the horse- and straw-scented gloom, he saw one of the Guards was ahead, pulling tight the wide strap that held Dallen’s saddle on his back.

He stood back uncertainly. The Guard didn’t seem to know he was there. :Now what do I do?: he thought.

:You ask Tennit to help you onto my back.: Dallen cast an amused glance at him out of one blue eye, and the Guard turned.

“Heyla,” the man said in a friendly enough tone. “Got this lad all tacked up and ready for ye. Are ye gonna be needin’ a bit of help, then?”

Relieved that the man understood without Mags having to say anything, the boy nodded.

“Right ye are. So, ye come over here, yah? Then ye get yer left foot inta this thing, yah? ’S called a stirrup. Now ye grab that there—that there is the pommel of the saddle. If ye was alone, ye’d haul yerself up, but since I’m here, ye step inta my hands, ya?”

Awkwardly, Mags did so, gingerly putting his right foot into the man’s interlaced hands. And suddenly, he found himself shoved right into the air, practically over Dallen, saddle and all, and it was only by hanging onto the pommel thing for dear life that he avoided going right over Dallen’s back to fall in the straw on the other side of the Companion.

With a thud , he landed in the saddle and awkwardly fitted his right foot into the other stirrup.

The man fussed about with the stirrups for a moment, shortening the straps holding them to the saddle. Finally he was satisfied, as Mags sat there feeling unbalanced and precarious—and very far from the ground. “Right then, off ye go! Have a good ride!” He patted Dallen on the shoulder, and before Mags was ready, the Companion was moving.

Once again he held to the pommel of the saddle for all he was worth, and the feeling that he was never going to get the hang of this riding business, that he was going to fall off at any moment and break his skull, and that Dallen was surely laughing at him.

:And why would I laugh at you?: came the indignant response.

:I dunno, ’cause ... ’cause ...:

:I would much rather make a decent rider of you before we have to start on our journey to Haven. So, Chosen, you are sitting there in my saddle like a bag of grain. Let me show you ...:

And now, Mags felt something he had not experienced until this moment. It was as if he and someone else were sharing the same body. But the second person understood exactly how to ride, and ride well, ride expertly in fact. And that person lent to Mags the experience of how a good rider felt in the saddle. It was a very, very strange sensation. A little like sharing his body with a ghost. But as Dallen continued to move at a brisk walk, Mags shifted his weight, his posture, even small things like how his legs gripped Dallen’s body, until what he was feeling matched what the ghostly presence had experienced.

In a moment of brilliant epiphany, it all came together. Mags no longer felt as if he was going to tumble off at any moment. As Dallen kicked his way through fluffy, sparkling snow, still moving at a brisk walk, Mags began to feel elation. It was like the first time he chipped out a really big sparkly without damage. Only better.

Now Dallen started moving in and around the trees surrounding the Guard building, curving his body first one way, then the other. Mags felt his balance changing and followed that intangible guide to get it back. Then Dallen changed to a different gait, a bouncy sort of movement.

That was painful at first. Mags and Dallen were no longer moving at the same rate, and the first couple of paces, Mags hit the saddle hard enough to jar.

“Ow!” he exclaimed indignantly. “What’re ye doin’ that for? Why’d ye change?”

:You have to learn how to ride at all my paces, Mags. This is the trot. And this is how it feels.:

His confidence slipped a good deal at that point; he could tell what he was supposed to do, but he couldn’t figure out how to get there, and Dallen was not letting up on him and going back to the walk. Mags gritted his teeth, clutched the pommel, and concentrated on making his body move the right way. And then, finally, he and Dallen were moving together again. And muscles he was not aware that he had began faintly protesting.

:If you think this is bad now, wait until we have been on the road for an entire day,: Dallen said mercilessly.

“A day!” Mags exclaimed, aghast. He could not begin to imagine what riding for an entire day would be like.

:It is more than seven days to Haven,: Dallen replied, appalling Mags even further.

From the trot, Dallen moved to the pace, then the canter, all the while keeping up those weaving patterns in and around the trees, coming so close that the fabric of Mags’ coat caught on the bark. He was going fast, too, by the time they got to the canter. But Mags wasn’t afraid now, he couldn’t be. He was so busy thinking about what he should be doing that he had no time for fear.

Finally, as the bell that summoned them all to the noon meal sounded, Dallen slowed down to a walk again, and turned around to head back to the stables. Mags heaved a sigh of relief, even as he winced from the pain in his legs. When they arrived, the same Guard was waiting for them.

He helped Mags down out of the saddle and caught him as he almost fell with an involuntary groan of pain. “Ah, lad, ye’d better be getting’ yer horse-legs an’ get tough,” the Guard called after him, as he limped off toward the building gain, thinking of nothing more than yet another hot bath and maybe, only then, some food. “Heralds spend their whole lives a-horse.”

:And if someone had told me that ...: He didn’t finish that somewhat sour thought. Dallen’s sympathetic chuckle managed to soothe his injured spirit, if not his legs.

That night, Mags was sore, despite a good hot soak. The next morning he woke in considerable pain. He wasn’t about to complain, however; he had actually expected the pain. Every time he’d been set to a new task by the Pieterses, he’d hurt, from simple soreness to being in agony. That was just the way it was; you did something new, you used muscles you hadn’t before, and you hurt. And he knew what to do about it, too. He crawled out of bed, with his legs screaming at him, and slowly began to stretch. When his legs were only whimpering, he went to breakfast, then went back to the barracks room and stretched some more. Dallen noted this with quiet approval, and sent him in search of the Healer, who gave him a bitter tasting tea to drink and a bottle of something that smelled rather like pine sap to rub on. And both helped. By afternoon, most of the worst of the pain was gone, which was when Dallen summoned him to riding practice again.